Manage Xero Integration

Arlo provides integration with Xero to manage your invoices. Invoices will be automatically copied to Xero and assigned to your account/GL codes, and when you mark an invoice as paid in Xero, the order in Arlo will be automatically marked as paid.

The following information describes how to set up integration between Arlo and Xero.

The following instructions describe how to set up Xero integration to a single Xero account/organisation. Note:If you have multiple regions in Arlo and a Xero account/organisation for each region, see multi-Region Xero integration.

Select Settings from the main menu.

Click Xero. You will be taken to the 'Xero Integration' page.

Press Connect to Xero. You will be redirected to Xero's website.

Log in to Xero (if prompted).

Select the organisation you would like to integrate. Hint: If your organisation is not listed then make sure your user account is in the standard user or financial adviser role.

Press Authorise.You will be redirected back to the 'Xero Integration' page on Arlo.

New contact created in Arlo (Bill to contact on an order) > copied when order created > Contact created in Xero. Note: If the contact already exists in Xero, the organisation in Arlo will be linked to the contact in Xero, and any future invoices will be linked to them.

Note: Once an order has been created in Arlo, changing the default account codes will not update the codes in Xero. You would need to add the invoice/order details manually into Xero to correct your GL account balances.

To make it easy to search and match transactions in Xero, Arlo adds the payment method (e.g. cheque, credit card, bank transfer) to the invoice Reference field. You can then search transactions which have a certain payment method recorded against them. Read how to reconcile credit card and other transactions in Xero for more information.

Adding special warnings/flags to orders

Display Flags when creating new orders for an Organisation

Arlo allows you to add a special note (a "flag") to an organisation or contact. These flags are displayed when creating a new order for the organisation from the management platform. For example, if an organisation requires a purchase order on all invoices, add a flag to the organisation with the message "Requires purchase order on invoices before payment". When an administrator creates a new order for the organisation, the flag/message will be displayed. Read more about flags.

Mark Website Orders as "Requiring attention" for an Organisation

Arlo allows you to mark orders billed to a specific organisation as "Requiring attention" with a special message when a website order for the organisation is received, e.g. "Organisation requires a purchase order on invoices before payment", "Organisation has an overdue account". The order will not be exported to Xero until you dismiss the message. Read more.

Note: This is similar to the flag feature described above but is designed to add a warning message for orders received from your website. The flag feature is designed to warn an administrator when they create a new order from the management platform.

Field Mapping

The following table illustrates the mapping of contact fields in Arlo with contact fields in Xero.

If you have a multi-region Arlo platform, you can use Arlo's Xero integration in two ways:

Option 1 - Standard Integration

If you have one Xero account/platform (all orders and credit notes sent to your one instance of Xero) you will not need to do anything differently in Arlo for this, and the settings will be exactly the same as described above. Invoices will use the order region to determine the currency in Xero. Note:Your Xero account will need to be set up with multi-currency capability, which is only available on the Xero Premium plan. Read more on Xero's help site.

Option 2 - Regionalised Integration

If you have multiple Xero accounts (e.g. your regions are actually different companies, with their own Xero account) Arlo allows you to choose a different Xero account for each region so that your invoices will flow through to the correct Xero account. You can also specify different integration settings for each region.

Notes:

Regionalised integration does not support contact updates between Arlo and Xero.

Regionalised integration does not support having a number of regions on the same Xero account/platform - you must have a different Xero account/platform per region.

Update settings for regionalised Xero Integration when there is already an existing integration to Xero (single region)

Select Settings from the main menu.

Click Xero.

Disconnect the existing Xero organisation.Important: If you do not see the message "To enable regionalized Xero integration, please Disconnect first", you need to contact Arlo support to enable regionalised Xero integration.

Choose a region to connect to.

Log in to Xero (if prompted).

Select the organisation you would like to integrate. Hint:If your organisation is not listed then make sure your user account is in the standard user or financial adviser role.

Press Authorise. You will be redirected back to 'Xero Integration' page on Arlo.

Xero often makes updates to their API (the system that allows systems to exchange information and updates) for various reasons. They try to make updates in a way that will not disturb the connection, but sometimes the updates are not backwards compatible, meaning the integration will disconnect.

If your Xero integration disconnects, a 'Xero Integration Error' email will be sent to the specified email address in your Xero Integration settings in Arlo:

You may also or instead see an error on the order in Arlo:

If you see either of these errors, please follow the instructions and your orders will be exported to Xero. If after 30 minutes your affected orders have not exported to Xero, or if the integration is disconnecting very regularly, please contact Arlo support.

Error: Contact archived "The contact with the specified contact details has been archived"

Xero will not allow Arlo to import orders for a contact who has been archived in Xero and you will see the following error: "The contact with the specified contact details has been archived. The contact must be un-archived before creating new invoices or credit notes. The status 'ARCHIVED' is not valid for contacts."

Note: Merging contacts in Xero also means the original contact is Archived. You will need to undo the contact merge in Xero before allowing export to Xero as above.

Error: No matching Contact

In order to prevent duplicate records being created in your accounting system, Arlo will mark website orders as 'Requiring Attention' where an order is billed to an organisation or contact that does not currently exist in Xero. You then have the option to either dismiss the message and continue or potential merge the record if a duplicate exists (e.g. someone may have misspelled their name during the website order process).

Note: Read how Arlo provides auto suggestions during the website order process to prevent duplicate records.

Error: Export to Xero failed - "The TaxType field is mandatory. Account code 'xxx' is not a valid code for this document"

This means that the account/GL code is not found in your accounts ledger in Xero. You should update the account code in the event or other entity (e.g. voucher) with that account code, but note that this will not update the order in Arlo, and you will need to create the invoice manually in Xero. Hints: Manually export orders from Arlo and import into Xero, and mark the order(s) as exported.

Important note: If the event's GL/Account code is updated after orders for the event have already been created, the orders will not update with the new GL/Account code, and the order will not export to Xero. For this reason we recommend changing your GL/Accounts as little as possible.

Error: The existing contact with name 'CONTACT NAME' cannot be updated to use new name 'NEW NAME'. There is an existing contact with that name.

There's already a contact on Xero with the name 'NEW NAME'. In order to sync this invoice and its organisation details, this contact has to be deleted (or renamed) on Xero.